


Small Comforts

by erinaceous



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Background Jaal/Sara - Freeform, F/F, Fluff, Homesickness, Pre-Relationship, Two Shot, Vetra's got a cruuuush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erinaceous/pseuds/erinaceous
Summary: Suvi's homesick, and Vetra realises she's the only one who can help.





	1. Chapter 1

As usual, Vetra was not sleeping.

She'd never been a particularly heavy sleeper—it had always been safer to grab a few minutes where and when she could, less chance of someone sneaking up on her that way—but this particular sleepless night had nothing to do with muggers or dodgy guys who'd waited too long for debts to be paid. She was in one of the Initiative's most advanced ships, that she had provisioned herself, surrounded by people she knew and trusted. There was no danger here, at least not within the ship's walls.

It was one of the other crew members' muffled sobs that kept her awake, and she had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

Silently, Vetra reached up to the narrow shelf above her bunk and felt around for her visor. If she could work out who was upset, maybe then she'd have some idea of how she could help.

She clipped it onto the hard ridge above her ear and switched it on. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the bright overlay in the darkness, but eventually the biological signatures of her fellow crew members came into focus. There was Drack, slumped over and snoring; Liam lay sprawled on a bottom bunk with one arm thrown over his face and one foot on the floor; Gil was curled up on his side, facing the wall, but the crying was too high-pitched to be him.

She listened closer and realised the faint noises were coming from directly below her. She looked down, and sure enough, Suvi's energy signatures showed that she was awake.

One thing that had surprised her about humans was the crying. Turians couldn't cry, but they still felt grief and rage and elation—so why did humans have to express all those things in the same way? Vetra liked to think she had a pretty good grasp of human facial expressions and their weird flat voices, but crying still confused her.

She reached up to remove the visor (using it too soon after waking up always gave her an awful headache), but she must have made a noise as she did so, because Suvi's muffled sobbing stopped abruptly.

There was no chance of getting to sleep after that moment. She herself had only had occasional pangs of homesickness—for her, home wasn't about the place but the people, and the one person who meant _home_ to her was safe and sound on a nice, secure space station. Vetra had brought all she owned onto the Nexus in a steel crate, and had not looked back.

She knew it wasn't the same for Suvi. Any family she'd left in the Milky Way had been dead for centuries. She could tell the science officer put on a brave face most of the time, but that knowledge had to crush a soul as soft as hers.

What could you say to someone going through that? It was one thing Vetra could never have in common with the rest of the _Tempest_ crew. Liam would be a better person for Suvi to talk to, or Gil, but they were both asleep. She'd ask Jaal for help, as he seemed to have slipped into the role of Feelings Guy with the same quiet confidence that he had when he was putting bullets between kett soldiers' eyes, but lately he'd been sleeping in Ryder's room and no way in the fucking galaxy was she disturbing _that_ (Sara was trying to keep it low-key, but it was a small ship and Vetra was pretty sure Jaal would be telling anyone who would listen, if she would let him).

No, if anyone was going to help Suvi, it would have to fall to her. 

* * *

“Oh. Morning, Vetra.”

 “Hey,” The turian said, looking up from her screen, glad to be given an excuse to put off replying to her old contact who wanted to call in a favour. She was sure she didn't owe the wheedling bastard anything, but he was convinced otherwise.

Suvi, clad in pastel lilac pyjamas and a pair of fluffy socks, shuffled over to the cupboard. Vetra may have found human emotions confusing, but at least they were always clearly displayed on their rather elastic faces, and the dark shadows under Suvi's eyes, and the pink tinge to the white bits, were a stark reflection of last night's sorrow. Even her voice sounded tired and weighed-down.

“What's that human expression?” Vetra said, just to lighten the mood a little. “We're birds that are early?”

“Early birds?” Suvi said, glancing at her over her shoulder as she filled the kettle and turned it on. At least her frown wasn't quite as intense now. “Yeah, I guess. Kallo's up, but the others are still sleeping.” She opened the cupboard and took down a jar, dumping a few spoonfuls of brow grains into a mug.

Involuntarily, Vetra's mandibles closed in a frown at the bitter smell. “Don't tell me you're moving on to coffee now? It's not _that_ early.”

Suvi laughed, but it was a weak sound that was obviously forced, even to her alien ears. She could tell, because she had heard Suvi laugh before, at one of Liam's frankly terrible jokes, or a video Peebee had posted on the crew message board of Jaal slipping on the ice at Voeld and falling on his ass. Suvi's laugh was a beautiful, tinkling sound, and this was not it. “No, I don't even like coffee that much. I ran out of tea yesterday.” She sighed, pressing her lips together in a thin line, and fixed her eyes on the floor. “I haven't been able to get hold of any more. It's not exactly a priority for the agriculture people, is it?”

“I think they need to master growing your potatoes in Heleus soil before they move on to tea,” Vetra conceded.

It seemed doubtful that a lack of tea would cause the heaving, muffled sobs she'd heard last night, but Suvi's mood suddenly made a lot more sense. Humans did love their small comforts, Vetra had noticed in the time she'd spent living in close quarters with them. Gil's poker habit, Liam's manky couch, Ryder's music that was more suited to a dingy club on Omega than the Pathfinder's ship. Suvi's tea. It was one aspect of the human mind she had no trouble understanding; she did love her cereal.

Vetra supposed it was lucky for Suvi that she was owed a lot of favours.


	2. Chapter 2

Vetra had been courting this particular dealer for a while, and was relieved that she'd reached the point only two weeks ago where he finally decided to trust her, realising that though she worked for the Initiative, she wasn't about to rat out a smuggler if their relationship was mutually beneficial.

At least, that was what she told herself as she leaned against the outside of a run-down bar at the edge of Kadara Port. The name was painted on the side in peeling blue paint, but she'd never had time to sit down and learn the angaran writing system, so she couldn't read it. Ryder would be able to though, because learning alien alphabets for shits and giggles was just the sort of thing Ryder did.

“Nyx?” said a voice from above her.

Vetra looked up. Leaning out of a second-story window was a young human woman with lank brown hair that hung over her shoulder in greasy tendrils. “Yeah,” she said, not moving from her spot. Couldn't look too eager.

The woman jerked her head at the room behind her. “He's ready for you.”

_Finally_ , Vetra thought as she ducked into the bar. She could tolerate Kadara's perpetual sulphuric stench most of the time. It wasn't as strong in the main part of the port, but it had been starting to get to her out there in the sun, so entering the bar was a relief. It was almost empty, given it was just gone noon. The angaran bartender glared at her darkly as she made for the stairwell, but she ignored him.

On the way up she passed a twitchy salarian clutching a small plastic bag to his chest. She pressed herself to the wall so they could pass, but he carried on, oblivious. She sighed. Of course she had to go to a drug pusher for a damned cup of tea. She knocked once, and the human woman opened the door and admitted her in silence.

The inside of the room was lit only by a single window. Dust motes swirled in the shaft of light, and when she entered a big angara turned from a computer terminal in the corner, arms folded.

“Vetra Nyx?” he said, stepping into the light. His skin was a pale yellow, and he wore a faded _rofjinn_ slung loosely over his shoulders like a scarf.

“Daanshal?” was all she said in answer. The only info her correspondent had shared about himself was his first name, and the fact that he was, as he put it, a 'travelling merchant' who could find anything his customer wanted, as long as they paid well and didn't ask inconvenient questions. Drugs, weapons, stolen artifacts. Tea. Daanshal sold it all.

Daanshal watched her with sharp blue eyes, the pupils narrowed to slits. “Sit down, and we'll talk business.”

Vetra perched on the nearest crate, not wanting to get too comfortable. She didn't like the way the woman was lurking by the door, a very obvious pistol secured to a holster at her waist. “You know what I want.”

“Yes. A very specific plant cultivated by humans—but not as a hallucinogen or medicine. You're looking for a beverage.” His voice carried a heavy accent similar to Jaal's, but the amusement in his words was clear.

“Yes.”

“And what are you going to pay me in return?”

This was the part she'd been worried about. She hoped Daanshal hadn't met enough turians to be able to read their facial expressions yet, because her mandibles felt stiff with anxiety. She slung her backpack onto the floor and unzipped it, showing Daanshal what lay inside.

Frowning, he picked up one of the three boxes and squinted at it. “What is it?”

“A food item valued by humans.” _And turians_ , she thought, not without sadness. “They call them Blast-Ohs.”

Daanshal looked down at her. “Why?” he demanded. “Do they explode?”

“No, Blasto is a movie character in the Milky Way. They named a cereal after him.”

If anything, Daanshal just looked more confused. “And this is an item of value to them?”

“Yeah.” said Vetra, “They don't make it here, so there's a finite supply.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “They contain a lot of sugar. If you're careful about who you give it to, humans can get addicted to it.”

Daanshal's eyes lit up. “Perfect.” Then he seemed to remember the woman, and glanced at her over his shoulder. “Kate, is the turian telling the truth?”

The woman—Vetra couldn't decide if she was a girlfriend, bodyguard, or business partner—raised her eyebrows at Vetra in a look that said _you cannot be fucking serious_. For a moment Vetra was worried she would tell Daanshal to throw her out in the street and stop wasting his time, but she shrugged instead. “Yeah, pretty much. I haven't seen any Blast-Ohs since I got here, actually. And sugar is pretty addictive to humans. I'd say it's a fair trade for a jar of tea leaves.”

“Then we have a deal, Vetra Nyx,” said the angara, grabbing a glass jar from the table behind him and tossing it to her. “Great doing business with you.”

“Yeah, likewise,” said Vetra, stuffing the tea in her now-empty backpack and heading for the door.

* * *

It wasn't until she got to the docks and caught sight of the _Tempest_ that Vetra stopped in her tracks. She knew Ryder wasn't planning on leaving Kadara for a couple of days, so she'd been planning on settling down with a bowl of cereal and getting some work done.

She'd given Danshaal three boxes of Blast-Ohs...that meant she only had six left, and she'd have to save a couple for similar negotiations. She might actually have to start moderating her cereal habit, at least until the Nexus agriculture department moved on to more important things than potatoes, like additive-laced cereal.

Damn. Tea was a rare substance, obviously, but _come on_.

Vetra sank down onto a bench and watched the shuttles and small craft zipping over the city, the shouts and laughter of Kadara Port a distant echo. If Sara or Kallo or Jaal were having a bad day or three, would she go to the same lengths to get _them_ a gift? She certainly wouldn't trade her Blast-Ohs for it.

And all at once, anxiety seized her. She knew there were dozens of types of tea, what if she'd got the wrong one? What if Danshaal had stiffed her and given her some shredded leaves from some random Heleus plant? _What if Suvi didn't like it?_

She stood up, shouldering her bag. There was only one way to find out.

* * *

The next morning Vetra discovered that, despite Cora's assurances, toast was not a sufficient replacement for Blast-Ohs. Of course the humans would have brought plenty of plain, dry bread with them instead of delicious hanar-shaped wheat puffs. Of course.

It didn't help that Suvi was currently sitting opposite her, nose buried in her datapad, waiting for the kettle to boil.

Vetra tried to swallow her last bite of toast, but found her throat suddenly dry as she did. Suvi looked up, alarmed, when she tried to suppress a cough.

“Are you all right, Vetra?” she said, her soft voice confused.

She nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine.”

“How come you're not eating your cereal?”

“Just wanted a change,” Vetra said, but her voice was different because as she spoke, Suvi had stood up and opened the cupboard.

“I thought you didn't like—oh my goodness.” She broke off when she caught sight of the jar Vetra had carefully placed in front of the coffee tin. She took it down from the shelf and held it in her hands as reverently as if it were a bar of solid gold. “Was this you?” Her eyes were wide and a faint pink tinge coloured her cheeks.

Vetra sighed in relief. She liked it. Thank all the stars in this galaxy _and_ the old one. “Yeah,” she said, finally allowing herself to smile. “Found them on Kadara yesterday.”

“You must have had to trade...” she trailed off as her eyes drifted down to the crust left on Vetra's plate. “Oh.”

The turian shrugged. “It's junk food anyway.”

“You didn't have to do that, Vetra. But thank you. Thank you so much.”

She shrugged. “I'm the ship's provisioner. That's what I do, I provision the ship. And the crew. And all that stuff.”

But she could tell by the look they shared that her motivations went beyond duty, and they both knew it, though neither of them said anything as Suvi waited for her tea to brew.

One thing Vetra was certain of was that she would gladly trade the last of her Blast-Ohs if it meant she could see that look on Suvi's face again.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write something cute for this pairing for a while, pretty much since I heard Vetra make a comment in the Nomad about thinking Suvi's accent is attractive!


End file.
